


Stegosawns and Time

by obaewankenope (rexthranduil)



Series: Absconding with Harry verse [10]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Absconding with Harry verse, Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Dinosaurs, Gen, Jurassic Park References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25880572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexthranduil/pseuds/obaewankenope
Summary: “The T-Rex scenes were pretty great though, weren’t they?”“Oh Morgana, yes! I really enjoyed the car chase.”“Me too!”“Also, that nasty lawyer—”“—oh yeah! He totally got what he deserved!”“What the bloody hell is a dinosaur?”
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Absconding with Harry verse [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1399645
Comments: 38
Kudos: 374





	Stegosawns and Time

**Author's Note:**

> Requested on tumblr for Absconding with Harry verse ft dinosaurs. I had an idea for _actual_ dinosaurs but wasn't sure how to work with that. This is the next best thing.
> 
> This takes place in their third year btw.

Harry doesn’t particular _care_ about dinosaurs, not really, but he’s a thirteen-year-old boy and dinosaurs are sort of A Thing for thirteen-year-old boys to be interested in. Well, according to _Miss_ Hale, who runs the local corner shop with her husband of thirty-five years, at least.[1]

So, of course, Harry has to at least be _interested_ in dinosaurs otherwise Miss Hale will make _comments_ about his Uncle’s and Harry will want to cause a bit—a lot—of chaos in her shop, even though she’s very nice to him and only makes snide comments on Tuesdays.[2] It’s less because Harry wants to impress Miss Hale with his dinosaur knowledge and more that he wants to have information he can utilise against someone who seems to like making Comments about his Uncle’s lifestyles.

Harry is well-aware that he can be a petty child, but he does limit his pettiness to people who deserve a bit of Petty Childishness thrown in their overly opinionated faces. Thus, it follows that Harry learns the basic facts about dinosaurs, recites a couple to Miss Hale, adds a few titbits about the quantity of homosexual relationships in the animal kingdom and how there were probably queer dinosaurs— _enjoying immensely_ the way Miss Hale’s smile freezes on her face at that—and that, if Harry were to choose a dinosaur to be, he’d choose a _Psittacosaurus_ because “it looks really cute but I bet it can do a predator a whole lot of harm with those little tusks”.

Oddly enough, Miss Hale hasn’t asked if Harry is interested in things anymore and doesn’t seem interested in suggesting research topics for Harry to try and make a hobby out of.

Strange that.

But, when Jurassic Park is released in the UK on 16th July 1993, the interest Harry has in dinosaurs reaches a more expected level for a thirteen-year-old boy to possess; basically, he becomes obsessed with dinosaurs that eat people.

Though, not quite in the way Miss Hale probably ever expected Harry to be interested in carnivores. Apparently, spending thirty-minutes ranting about dinosaurs being denied access to enrichment like _zoo animals ought to have_ is not the “correct” response on the forum dedicated to All Things Jurassic Park.

When someone tells him to “read the book, dumbass” Harry has to log off and go for a fly on his broom. Cursing someone who lives on the other side of the planet for being obtuse and all-round rude isn’t something he should do; even if he _really wants to_.

The pulava dies down after a few weeks of Harry reading everything he can find about dinosaurs in the bookshop—strangely, Uncle ‘Zira’s collection on dinosaurs and palaeontology is quite limited—and the library, Harry heads back to Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron ending up being unwitting victims of his diatribes.

Well, _Ron_ is an unwitting victim. Hermione looks like Christmas has come early and she doesn’t even _celebrate_ Christmas except at Hogwarts.

“I know!” Hermione exclaims, nodding vigorously at what Harry’s saying on the topic of how dinosaur DNA just _couldn’t_ survive that long without totally degrading. “It’s really obvious if you think about it, even my parents said the same and they’re dental hygienists, but the boys who live by my house ignored me when I told them.”

“Idiots,” Harry replies and Hermione smiles at him. “Frog DNA is really picky as well, like, you definitely have to be careful with it; not just randomly add it to some ancient DNA and expect everything to be all hunky-dory! How do people not realise this?”

Harry shakes his head. “I know it’s fiction and Hollywood magic,” he continues, “but really, it’s a stupid plot to have such awful mad science stuff.”

“The book is much better than the film,” Hermione says and Harry nods. “Though, I do like the actors and—if I ignore the inaccuracies and deviations from the book—it’s not an awful film. I just prefer the book.”

“Same.” Harry pauses.

“The T-Rex scenes were pretty great though, weren’t they?” he asks and Hermione nods.

“Oh Morgana, yes!” Hermione agrees, grinning. “I really enjoyed the car chase.”

“Me too!”

“Also, that _nasty_ lawyer—”

“—oh yeah! He _totally_ got what he deserved!”

Ron, throughout this entire rant and later gush-fest regarding Jurassic Park and dinosaurs, is silent until he finally can’t take it anymore; judging by the way he all-but _bellows_ at Harry and Hermione.

“What the _bloody hell_ is a _dinosaur_?”

It’s probably The Worst question Ron could have asked but Ron obviously has no idea what Harry and Hermione are going on about; and Ron has never liked not knowing what’s going on. That’s probably because he grew up with six brothers and a little sister and had to deal with so much happening that he didn’t have a clue about. Being out of the loop is something Ron doesn’t handle very well when it comes to his friends and that means Harry and Hermione have an Obligation to educate Ron on the subject of dinosaurs.

He’s probably going to regret asking, Harry thinks, but at least he’ll know something other purebloods won’t.[3]

By the time the train arrives at Hogsmeade, Ron has a basic understanding of what dinosaurs are; ancient lizards that enjoyed being ancient lizards eating things and being eaten. Mentioning _Jurassic_ _Park_ during the Education of Ron sends them off on a digression that sees Ron being very, very confused by DNA, genetics, theme parks, and corporate environments. This drives Hermione to promise to borrow Ron her copy of the book, citing that it’s much more in-depth than what Harry and Hermione have told him, and to write a list of things that he doesn’t understand when reading so she and Harry can help him understand just _why_ theme park monsters are _Bad_.

Dinosaur-related learning falls to the wayside as term starts and things Happen throughout the year, but Harry still finds the chance to ask various purebloods about the topic; feeling very vindicated every time a pureblood looks at him like he’s a madman—which, to be fair, he is—or throws a bit of a wobbler at the prospect that _muggles know something a pureblood doesn’t._

When Harry asks a Slytherin who is somewhat amiable to students in other houses, he’s surprised when they actually _do_ know about dinosaurs; right up until he realises that they’re a half-blood and hiding the fact. That Slytherin turns out to be pretty delightful and Harry makes no comment on the fact that they use terms that only muggles use. He’s never known a single pureblood Slytherin to use the word _thermos_ when referring to their coffee cup and he just knows they picked that up from muggles.[4]

Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t find out until _later_ that Hermione wisely went and asked _the Ravenclaw purebloods_ about dinosaurs and discovered a whole host of them knew at least _something_ about them and palaeontology too. In the end, Harry loses the bet with Hermione and ends up knitting a whole load of hats for the House Elves—which are used as hats for the teapots rather than the Elves themselves, much to Hermione’s mild annoyance—which isn’t so bad and he at least learns a knew skill in the process.

Throughout all of this, the two come to a sort of unanimous decision that Hogwarts needs better education on non-magical things. Even if witches and wizards might not ever really need to know the names of carnivorous dinosaurs, it’s still useful to know stuff that muggles do so they can _better blend in when they’re older_.

The fact that it will also _reduce_ the division between magical and non-magical is something neither quite realise until they’re much, much older.[5]

Arranging a sort of study group with students from all the years to get them to learn about things Not Related To Magic is less of a challenge than either of them realise; especially when Ron snorts and tells them to make out the whole thing is “too good for those stuck-up purebloods”. Spite and pride, it turns out, are really good motivators for learning things just to Prove You Can.

Even the Slytherin’s show up.

That leaves Harry and Hermione, and several other muggleborns and half-bloods, with the job of explaining evolution to a bunch of witches and wizards. It sounds like it should be a doddle, but there are certain purebloods that seem _intent_ on making it beyond difficult.

Oddly enough, Malfoy _isn’t_ one of them.

“That doesn’t make any sense, though!” Stephen Cornfoot—a Hufflepuff—says and Harry _doesn’t_ roll his eyes, but it’s a near-thing.

“Environmental changes happen all the time,” Hermione says calmly, though the way her eyelid twitches slightly tells Harry—who’s stood right next to her—that she is definitely _not_ calm. “Physiological adaptation is natural response for a creature. Humans have evolved from previous versions to what we are today, _and we’re still evolving._ What is there to not understand?”

“A lot, apparently,” Harry mutters under his breath and looks away from the glare Hermione throws at him. “You can change how you act to stuff, right?” He says, raising his voice to be heard by everyone in the room—all forty or so students. “I know a lot of have broken school rules before, and I also know a good number of us have _avoided_ breaking them after the first time we got caught. Or broke the rules _better_ and _not_ got caught. Well, same sort of principle applies to evolution. But it’s a much, much longer scale of time. Instead of us learning to break the rules better and teaching the students after us—or our children, if any of us end up being parents—an animal can evolve over a hundred million years to become a better hunter, or avoid being hunted.”

“Newton Scamander even noted that magical creatures potentially underwent some evolutionary changes in their own history,” Hermione points out, and Cornfoot looks more convinced from that alone which, Harry will admit to himself, is pretty annoying. “You don’t think Kelpies have remained the size they are currently? Or as specifically adapted to marine living?”

Harry knows Hermione’s questions are rhetorical but the way Cornfoot blushes in embarrassment makes him reach out and place a hand on Hermione’s arm. He’s a little concerned she might hex Cornfoot for _actually_ believing Kelpies haven’t evolved.

He’s not certain how he’s supposed to stop her from actually committing murder when Cornfoot—and others—seem to not believe in evolution as though they’re the most resistant of Christians, but Harry figures that so long as Hermione doesn’t do it _in public_ and doesn’t get _caught_ then it’s not something he needs to really worry about.

Probably.

They split the students up into groups that each of the volunteer muggleborns and half-bloods who are willing to Educate The Noble Purebloods About Basic Things take. Whilst this enables Harry to keep Hermione _away_ from Cornfoot and his very strangle-able throat, it however, leaves Harry with Malfoy to deal with.

The things Harry does for his friends.

Uncle’s Crowley and Aziraphale show up about an hour into the Educating of Purebloods and, unfortunately, derail the entire thing with a very casual comment regarding the veracity of palaeontology.

“You’re telling them about dinosaurs?” Uncle Crowley asks and snorts. “Dinosaurs aren’t real.”

“Of course they are!” Hermione says in the sudden silence Harry’s uncle’s words have caused. “There’s over a century of detailed records and expeditions to look for new fossils. How can you even say otherwise?”

“Because they’re a big ol’ prank,” Uncle Crowley answers. “She made them that way.”

“She?” A Ravenclaw asks from Dean’s group.

“You know, God.” Harry’s uncle looks very unhappy to be explaining this but since he started it, Harry doesn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for him. “Thought it was a right laugh, I’m sure.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going- you know what? Fine, fine,” Hermione rambles and she looks a little frazzled; the way she does sometimes when Ginny’s friend, Luna mentions some creature from the Quibbler. “Have you any proof of this claim?” She asks in a measured tone.

Harry has a feeling that this discussion is going to get _Nasty_.

“Well, my memory, I guess,” Uncle Crowley says and points at Uncle ‘Zira. “And his.”

“You’re memory,” Hermione says flatly.

“Yep!”

“The Earth hasn’t existed long enough for dinosaurs to exist, anyway!” Uncle Crowley exclaims and Harry’s sure Hermione’s eyelid just twitched. “Only been around for six-thousand-years!”

“I see.” Hermione, if anything, manages to sound even _flatter_ than she did before. “Right, that’s what you believe. Nice to know. But _actual scientific research_ tells us the Earth is actually four-point-five _billion_ years old, not six-thousand. And,” she continues, “dinosaurs lived as recently as sixty-six million years ago and as far two-hundred-and-forty-five million years ago. That’s based on intense, rigorous scientific experiments which are _much_ more reliable than a heavily revised book written and re-written over the last two-thousand years.”

Harry doesn’t leave the room but he _sure wants to_. Judging by the expressions on a lot of the students in the room, they want to flee too.

“That’s part of the joke,” Uncle Crowley explains with a smirk. “Thought was right funny, She did. Bit unfair of Her, really, expecting you lot to ever figure out She punked you all with dinosaurs but—” he shrugs “—not a surprise, really. She’s like that.”

“Well, how do you know God made them as a prank?”

Harry looks across the room, eyebrows raised in surprise because that’s _Malfoy._

“Huh?” Uncle Crowley looks at the Slytherin with raised eyebrows himself. “Whadya mean?”

“Well, if your memory is what you’re going on, then did you have a conversation with God about dinosaurs and time and all that other stuff Potter and Granger have been going on about?” Malfoy elaborates. “Did you actually ask… _Her_ if dinosaurs are a joke or did you just _assume_ based on something you thought you know?”

Harry has never seen Uncle Crowley look so very _stumped_ about something and, although it’s probably a little—a lot—bad of him, he really enjoys the sight of it. Judging by the way he seems to be smiling a little at Uncle Crowley’s expression, Uncle ‘Zira enjoys it too.[6]

“Well, obviously not,” Uncle Crowley says. “I learnt it the hard way that asking Her stuff ends painfully. Just figured it was a joke because this dustball hasn’t existed that long.”

The amusement on Uncle ‘Zira’s face disappears. Uncle Crowley’s State of Affairs isn’t something Harry asks questions about but he can tell it’s not the greatest thing, bringing up their statuses as angel and demon.

“But how do you know Earth hasn’t?” Malfoy presses and Harry’s actually sort of impressed. Malfoy has been strangely strange the past year or so. He’s still a twit and a bigot, but he’s better than he was in the first year, for sure.

“We were there when She made it.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes. “And when did She make it? What date, exactly? What existed _before_ She made Earth?”

“Six-thousand years ago, I’ve said this kid,” Uncle Crowley replies. “Four-thousand-and-four-BC. She made it after Heaven and Hell got set up. It was Her big thing. Caused a lot of ruckus up in Heaven when She announced it.”

“Wasn’t Hell created when angels fell, though?” Terry Boot asks, frowning. “I’ve read the Bible and the Torah and Qur’an. I’m pretty sure Hell came _after_ the Earth was made.”

Uncle Crowley waves a hand. “Semantics, really,” he says, “time wasn’t a thing before Earth got shoved into being so Heaven and Hell both existed before and after this little dustball and solar system got set up.”

“If time ‘wasn’t a thing’,” Malfoy says, smirking in that smug way the Slytherin does that makes Harry want to hex him. “Then how do you really know how old the Earth is, or dinosaurs, when you’ve literally just said time didn’t exist _before_ the Earth was made? I mean, what if God was making it for a long time before She just made it real? Like when performing alchemy; we don’t just _make_ gold straight away; we build up to it.”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I said,” Uncle Crowley snaps and he looks annoyed now. Harry thinks it’s pretty amusing that he looks annoyed because he _definitely said that_.

“That is what you said, actually,” Hermione says and honestly, the fact that she’s siding with _Malfoy_ really says it all. Uncle Crowley has lost this argument and should probably just concede now. “The only way your argument could be valid would be if time existed _before_ Earth did and Hell _after_ and _only after_. Since you’ve said that _isn’t_ the case, then it can be assumed that time has been applied retrospectively and that means that, technically, dinosaurs _did_ live between two-hundred-and-forty-five and sixty-six million years ago because time is a measurement used to determine change.”

The room is silent because Uncle Crowley isn’t responding to Malfoy or Hermione and Uncle ‘Zira has been content to stand back and let Uncle Crowley do the talking. Harry is content to just Not Get Involved.

“Maybe the joke isn’t for humanity, maybe it’s for you,” Luna Lovegood says into the silence. She sounds like she usually does; like she’s more interested in Other Things that other people know nothing about. She reminds him of his Uncle’s sometimes, the way she just zones out and seems to be listening to something Harry can’t hear. Right now, however, Luna doesn’t remind him of his Uncle’s; he doesn’t know _what_ she reminds him of, only that it’s something Big and Important and Beyond Him. “Or perhaps it’s a test.”

Harry would like for this whole conversation to _end now please_ because the whole afternoon is getting away from them and he really did want to go flying on his broom before it got too dark to see in front of his face. Unfortunately, like most things lately, that plan is now in shambles and he’s stuck in this sort of painful situation of watching his Uncle’s quietly—or not so quietly, in Uncle Crowley’s case—question _everything they thought they knew_.

Existential crises happen even to celestial beings, apparently.

“Who cares!” Ginny’s voice echoes around the room, loud and a little startling. The room at large sort of looks at her; she’s doesn’t appear to be bothered by that. “I want to know about these Stegosawns, Hermione mentioned; they sound wicked.”

That—Harry notes—breaks whatever strange tension has been steadily filling the room since his Uncle’s entered and the students start to mutter amongst themselves; obviously they agree with Ginny and would really like this _conversation to end now, there’s way more interesting things to learn about, thanks._

Harry is all too happy to oblige.

“Stegosaurs, or Stegosaurus,” he corrects, giving Ginny a smile, “were herbivores that had armour-plating on their back and spikes on their tails. Definitely not something a predator wanted to fight if they were weak or injured. They probably weighed as much as a dragon and were probably as big, depending on the breed of dragon.”

“Woah, wicked,” Fred or George say and there’s a general murmur of agreement amongst the students. “Imagine running into one of those when out for a walk.”

“I think I’d prefer the dragon, actually,” a fourth-year Ravenclaw remarks to a smatter of laughter.

Harry sees his Uncle’s slink out of the room—well, Uncle Crowley slinks, Uncle ‘Zira just walks—and resolves to visit them later tonight. He thinks they might appreciate him there to distract them from whatever Thoughts Malfoy and Hermione have given them about their purpose and stuff. Gods know, Harry would appreciate the distraction if he were in their place.

But, for now, he has dinosaurs to talk about with some purebloods who seem much more enthusiastic about learning about giant lizards the size of dragons. He wonders how they’ll react to the Brontosaurus; it should be entertaining, at least.[7]

* * *

* * *

[1] To understand the expectation people, have for teenage boys to be interested in dinosaurs, you have to consider the fact that dinosaurs are viewed as something of a Violent and Bloody Topic fit only for Boys and Men. Why? Because society loves to treat girls like their only worth is to be found in looking pretty but being stupid and vapid. A girl with a personality or a brain must in want of a husband who can put her back into society’s True Woman Mold. Harry, thanks to his Uncle’s, isn’t in the _slightest_ bit impressed with this tripe and, as such, takes _great delight_ in learning about things Boys Shouldn’t Be Interested In as well as pushing Hermione and Ron’s sister, Ginny, to learn things Girls Shouldn’t Be Interested In. It’s very entertaining as well as educational.

[2] Why Tuesdays is anyone’s guess really, but it does serve to ensure that Harry knows what day of the week it is if he ever spontaneously forgets that Tuesdays exist.

[3] Harry places a bet with Hermione—ignoring her huffy comment about how she doesn’t “bet” even as she places said bet—that not a single pureblood at Hogwarts will know anything about dinosaurs. Hermione thinks Harry’s assumption regarding pureblood education simply _must_ be wrong since there are magical creatures that could be _living dinosaurs_ considering how old they are.

[4] The fact that Harry is only right about the Slytherin—Arnold Renard—being a half-blood rather than a pureblood is less because Harry possesses excellent deductive reasoning skills and more to do with the fact that he’s rather good at just _guessing_ stuff about people. If he ever sat down and really thought about how he knows this stuff, Harry _would_ discover that he actually does have good deductive reasoning skills but a rather poor working memory when it comes to _recognising_ such deductions consciously.

[5] The realisation that they can quite literally affect the entirety of the British Wizarding World by talking about dinosaurs, science, astronomy, heck, _even yoga_ is something of a revelation for the two. The long-term impact on pureblood rhetoric is most apparent by the next generation of magical children; and the impact is _wonderful_.

[6] Aziraphale enjoys the _sight_ of Crowley looking so stumped but the actual topic of conversation is one that will bother Aziraphale for a long time to come. The idea that they don’t _know_ exactly what She has planned. The idea that a child can ask such a question and reveal that they, angels and demons, are assuming _so much_ ; it’s terrifying because it means they could be _wrong_. Being wrong sounds like a dangerous thing to be when one is an angel, afterall.

[7] It is.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated


End file.
